Your blog is always a pleasant reading, Stu, and I believe we are all eager to start moving again. Incidentally, I'm already working on the JPEG route map covering this final leg (see below a half scale version).

And an overall downward slope the rest of the way can't be bad for those poor, sore wheels!

Hardly a slope. 1:160 means effectively dead flat. The visual representation of these graphs with such different axis metrics can be misleading. But the MOLA passes are pretty far apart here so there could well be swales, bumps and hollows to be found. But overall it does look life the sediments did a real good levelling job on the terrain.

Long answer: With an interesting "crack" at the North end, interesting ejecta blocks at the South end, and possible interesting erosion features all along the juncture between Cape York and the Meridiani pavement, who knows how long it will be before the urge to bypass all that and climb to the top will take hold. On the other hand, Cape York may turn out to be an easier traverse for Opportunity than Home Plate was for Spirit. Maybe a quick jog to the top before heading to the North or South end could be in store. Maybe head one way along the edge -- to the North for example -- then head the other way along the top. Or vise versa.

I couldn't imagine them spending anything like a year at CY when the real goal of clays would be farther to the south (not that you meant to suggest that, 'worth).

In fact, I wonder if they may decide to head straight for Tribulation, where the biggest exposure of clays seems to be, instead of CY. Or perhaps straight to Solander Point instead and then south to Tribulation. CY is quite a bit out of the way.

I agree. This must be gathering votes amongst those who will decide. In addition to the clays Tribulation has the same curious skirting shelf as Cape York so I can't see any obvious science that would be lost by missing out the latter except in the case that the rover fails just before reaching the slightly more distant target.

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